


Crossing The Lines

by EPS (Lillian_Shepherd), Oriole T (inamac)



Category: Garrison's Gorillas
Genre: M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-07-15
Updated: 1998-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:38:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Shepherd/pseuds/EPS, https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamac/pseuds/Oriole%20T
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The War is almost over.  When Garrison and Chief are caught behind enemy lines their captor has nothing to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing The Lines

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 'long and bent' version of the Zine **Gorilla Warfare** in 1998. The content and attitudes depicted reflect both the time the story is set, and the time when it was written.

# Crossing The Lines

The work camp's Kommandant's eyes widened as he took in the two young men his guards had been so fortunate to capture, and he smiled. "Oh, this is nice. Heinrich, just look at what the Americans have sent us."

There was a flicker of reaction, no more than the very slightest tensing of powerful muscles, from the taller of the two prisoners. The Kommandant wouldn't have noticed if he had not already been assessing the fair man's really quite beautiful physique with the eyes of a connoisseur. However, it suggested that he, at least, understood German.

Heinrich, a short, thick-set man in civilian clothing, in sharp contrast to the tall officer in his crisp cavalry-cut uniform, nodded approval. "Very good. One each. You think we will have some fun, Carl?"

The Kommandant tapped a long-thonged riding whip against his mirror-polished boot with studied impatience. "I think so." Yes, the blond man had understood, though his face was quite properly blank. So was that of his companion, whose black eyes mostly challenged the Kommandant's but occasionally flicked sideways to the other American's face.

Looking for instruction? If so, the fair man was the leader of the pair. Which was as it should be, for the other, for all his stunning looks, was not pure Aryan: his hair was as black as his eyes, his cheekbones too prominent, his skin darker than could be achieved by the sun in any civilised country, though under the tanned flesh his musculature seemed as fine as that of the blond. It would be easy enough to find out.

The Kommandant crooked a finger at a guard. "Manfred, strip them both, take the dark one down to the special cell, then bring the blond to me. And be careful. They are dangerous."

~0~

It was by no means the first time Garrison had been interrogated by an enemy officer, but it was the first time he had been stripped naked before the event or questioned by a man who seemed to care so little about the answers. Not that he was prepared to give any response other than the only one possible in these circumstances: "Garrison, Lieutenant, 926314."

"Very proper. But you are out of uniform-" the Kommandant sniggered "-and therefore a spy, Lieutenant. I could have you and your friend shot right now. However, I think you could be of some use to me. I have a proposition for you."

For the first time since the interrogation had begun the pale blue eyes met Garrison's and the thin lips curved in a smile of pure malice.

"An offer, as you Americans say, that cannot be refused."

~0~

Garrison's mind was still reeling from what the Kommandant had had to say as he was marched down into the bowels of the prison-like building. The guards touched him too often and too intimately, hands rough on his bare skin, accompanied by blatantly obscene comments that it took all his willpower to ignore. For once in his life, he wished that he didn't understand German quite so well.

There was death at every turn here, in every choice. Even if he did as the Kommandant had demanded - and he didn't think he _could_ \- neither he nor Chief were likely to live for long afterwards. Resistance would mean death, maybe sooner, maybe later, depending on how badly they goaded the Kommandant.

He couldn't make that choice for Chief, whatever he had done in the past. At least the others were well away, no doubt already behind the lines. The thought of Goniff or Casino in this position was too awful to contemplate; his one comfort was that he could rely on Chief's stoicism.

They stopped outside a heavy metal door. One of his guards produced a key while the other, with evident enjoyment, pressed the barrel of his gun deep into the small of Garrison's back with one hand, while the other reached round to grip his balls.

He didn't move, didn't even let himself wince. The guard wouldn't do him any permanent damage, not until the Kommandant ordered it-

The hand released him and he was kneed forward through the doorway and into the cell.

Chief was on his feet and across the room quickly enough to steady him. They'd stripped him, too, but he carried his nakedness as if it made no difference whether or not he was clothed.

"You okay, Warden?"

"For the moment, but-" He took a shaky breath, not knowing how to begin to tell Chief what was expected of them.

"Firin' squad?" Chief asked. "Or the gallows?"

"Not... yet. Not until the Kommandant and his buddy Heinrich have had their fun with us."

"Thought that was how it is. Whadda we do, Warden?"

He had heard that question so many times. Casino asked it ironically, but Chief always seemed to believe he would have an answer.

This time he didn't.

He pulled free of the other man's grip and circled the cell, looking for something that might help them, anything that could be used as a weapon. The room was bigger than he'd expected, empty except for a mattress laid on the floor and a narrow hole whose function could be deduced from the smell rising from it. Even the door opened outwards. There was no help here, and Chief would have known that just as soon as he stepped inside.

He turned to face the Indian, who was waiting alertly for him to come up with something. He said, "They threw me in here so I could rape you."

Chief's expression did not change. "An' if you don't?"

"I watch them do it, then they kill you." Garrison kept his eyes steady on Chief's. "Not that they won't do that, anyway, to both of us, but..." He broke off, and shook his head. "There's only one option. When they come... we'll have to at least try to take some of them with us."

The Indian's own gaze was steady, and unfathomable. "They'll be expectin' it, Warden."

Garrison rounded on him. "What else can we do, dammit? I am _not_ going to play their filthy games."

"I...," began Chief, then he shook his head, whatever he had meant to say abandoned in the face of Garrison's expression. The Lieutenant's hands were curled into fists, white-knuckled. And the muscles in his arms corded like strung wire. It was the first time, in three years of desperate missions, that Chief had ever seen him so angry - and so... scared.

"How much time we got?" he asked instead.

It wasn't the question Garrison had expected. His eyes moved automatically to his bare wrist before returning to Chief. "I don't think that they expected me to be able to just walk in and jump you. Fifteen minutes at least. Maybe half an hour."

Chief nodded. "Long enough. Sit down, Warden. I need t'tell you something."

Puzzled and curious, Garrison obeyed, lowering himself to sit cross-legged on the thin mattress. Facing him, Chief mirrored the action, so that there was a scant six inches between their folded knees. There was silence for a few moments, while Chief took half a dozen long, shallow breaths. Then he began to speak. "When I was nine years old I asked my great granddaddy, my mother's father's father, to teach me how to use a knife."

He paused. Garrison might have interrupted but the other man's intense gaze and even tones, quite unlike his usual flip drawl, told him that this was important to Chief. He held silent.

"He said he wouldn't teach me t'kill 'till he'd taught me the Way of our People. 'Bout respectin' life an' what it means to be a warrior. 'Bout tradition 'n' honour 'n' brotherhood. I didn't give it much mind 'cos he taught me huntin' too, how to use a knife an' rope an' axe. I learned that - maybe too well. Granddaddy never thought I'd be huntin' in white men's cities. He never had time for white men. Said they didn't understand the Way." The Indian paused and, for the first time since he had started the recital, his eyes focused directly on Garrison's. "Neither did I: 'till I met you."

Garrison met the gaze with a growing confusion. What little knowledge he had about the American Indians had been gleaned at third hand from books and movies. He was a soldier, not a warrior. All he knew of honour and leadership had been learned at West Point and on the battlefields of North Africa and Europe, but something in what Chief had said held an echo of his own words to the novice nun, Sister Therese, on a French road strewn with the corpses of men Casino had shot on his orders, to save the children the woman had placed in his hands.

_I have respect for life - all life..._

The Way of the Warrior. Not kill or be killed, but kill because there is no other choice. Kill or starve. Kill or be enslaved. Kill - or watch a whole race die.

But...

"There's something else," Chief continued, intense. "You've killed for me, Warden. An' me for you. Makes us near enough blood brothers. Among my people, between warriors, ain't nothin' closer." For the first time since he had begun speaking, Chief moved, reaching out with the hands that had been resting on his knees to lay them over Garrison's. "Ain't nothin' forbidden."

The hands slid along Garrison's forearms, down over his thighs, between his legs...

The black eyes never left his.

"My name," Chief said, as if he was quoting a ritual, "in your language, is Rain on the Mountain. Do what you have to do - Craig."

Whatever Garrison had expected of this encounter seduction and submission had played no part of it. The hand encircling his penis was warm and dry. His own palms, fingers clawed to grip his knees, were sweating. "Chief... This isn't... What I have to do is get us out of here. Alive."

"Sure. An' to do that you'll have to rape me. 'Cept it can't be rape. Not between us. Not now. An' afterwards, if there's killin' to be done, we'll both be ready."

Garrison shivered, as much from the response to the deft fingers working at his groin as at the other man's words. He had been so horrified by the sadistic German's plans that he had not even thought beyond them. Treating the whole obscene idea as a diversion sounded more like one of Actor's or Casino's wild plots. The ultimate con. Only Chief was not conning him. Every word he had said held the conviction of truth, and when he at last looked down, away from that disconcerting gaze, he saw, in the shadows between the other man's crossed legs, that he was fully erect.

It was the most primal response to danger in nature. Fright, fight, flight, and fuck. Perhaps that was why the Indians recognised its need between warriors, and did not condemn it.

And perhaps, a small part of his mind told him, you really do want to rape him.

His cock certainly did. He reached out - and at the same moment Chief turned away, listening. "Someone's outside."

Hell. Too soon. Garrison had missed the footstep that had alerted Chief, but they both heard the key turning in the lock. By the time the Germans entered the two men were standing and apart, Chief turned away against the wall of the cell, radiating an air of feral anger that even the Germans could not miss, though they might misinterpret its cause.

"Well," said the Kommandant, taking in the Indian's tense stance and Garrison's half-hard state, "it seems you were planning to start without us. That really isn't very polite, Lieutenant. You knew we wanted to see the fun."

The only oaths Garrison could think of were obscenely sexual and wholly inappropriate. He swallowed them.

The Kommandant nodded to the three guards who crossed the room, seized Chief and spread-eagled him face down on the mattress. The largest of the blank-faced men, the one who had manhandled Garrison into the cell, forced both of Chief's wrists down on the floor with one massive hand and held a cocked pistol to his head with the other. The other pair took an ankle each, twisting so hard that any movement on the prone man's part would break bones. It was done so deftly that there could be no doubt that this was not the first time this scene had been played out in this cell.

The Kommandant's henchman looked down at the naked body and licked his lips. "You know, Carl, I must confess that I am rather disappointed by the Lieutenant's decision, but I'm sure that there'll be a chance for us all to have a turn afterwards."

_I'll see you in Hell first._

It took an effort of will on Garrison's part not to say it, not to give in to his instinct to tackle the man, get his hands around that thick neck and wrench the bones apart - but that would write Chief's death warrant. There were too many guns, and the men were far too alert.

"That wasn't," he said, tightly, knowing that it was futile, "part of the deal".

The Kommandant's perfect teeth bared in a smile. "Oh Lieutenant, surely you didn't really think that either of you would leave here alive - or _virgo intacto_?"

He tapped the coiled horsewhip against his leg, then shook it out as he stepped across to run the tip of the lash slowly down Chief's naked back, flipping it aside as it reached the cleft in his buttocks with a motion that drew a fine welt across the inside of one thigh. Like everything else he had done, it was very practised. Garrison, watching not the whip but the man's eyes, felt bile rise in his throat.

"It really is a beautifully tight little arse, Lieutenant." The Kommandant looked up to meet Garrison's eyes and his voice was suddenly ugly: "You've got thirty seconds to decide what goes into it: your cock or Heinrich's revolver."

The revolver that was scant inches from his own head. The Kommandant's henchman grinned and hooked a leg between Garrison's ankles, knocking him off balance so that he was forced to kneel between Chief's spread thighs. The gun followed him down and the man whispered in his ear, "Do it. Now."

His hands went out to rest flat on Chief's back. The flesh was cold, and damp with sweat. He could not do this. He was still only half-hard and if he tried to force intercourse in that condition he would damage himself more than Chief. Then the German leaned over them both, reversed the whip in his hand, and brought the cold silver ferrule of the handle up between Garrison's legs and hard against his scrotum.

The Kommandant must have been as familiar with the nerve points that prompted sexual response as Garrison was with those that paralysed. He was suddenly, shockingly, erect, responding to the brutal touch of the metal with a thrust of pure animal reflex. In the same moment Chief exhaled and relaxed, fractionally, under him.

It was enough. The motion took him through the barely opened ring of muscle and into the dry, tight warmth of Chief's body.

It felt... terrifying. For all that Chief had said that, between warriors, this could not be rape, there was no other name for it. The constriction of his glans, the touch of the whip on his balls, blind sexual need, combined to bring him to an arousal that annihilated all rational thought. He thrust again, and again, and not all the slickness that suddenly eased the passage of his engorged organ in that tight channel was his own semen. Some of it was blood.

With the release, rational thought returned. He turned his head slightly, saw Heinrich wiping his thick, moist lips with the back of his gun hand, could hear the Kommandant breathing hard with arousal behind him. Both were far too preoccupied to be a threat. The real danger was the man holding the pistol and Chief's hands.

He withdrew as quickly as he dared, braced one hand on the floor beside Chief's ribs, and thrust again - but this time he was clear of Chief's body and the movement catapulted him forward to smash the heel of his free hand into the jugular of the kneeling guard hard enough to snap his neck back and force his grip free of the Indian. The pistol clattered to the floor, within easy reach of Chief's unbound hands. Without waiting to see the consequences, certain of what they would be, he rolled, bringing Heinrich down with his heels and cannoning him into the man holding Chief's right leg.

He had been right about the speed of Chief's reactions. The pistol barked to his right, and the other guard went down, vomiting blood. Two dead, three to go.

He bounced to his feet, fractionally faster than the bullet which Heinrich sent into the floor where his head had been a moment before. It was a civilian's mistake. No soldier would have tried for such a small, moving, target. Chief wasn't so foolish. He had rolled onto his back and took time to aim at the final guard. It was a body shot, a low one. The man staggered, and fell, almost taking Heinrich with him, and Garrison used the diversion to dive forward, under the revolver, to drive a knee much harder than was necessary into the man's groin.

Behind him he heard a curse, a long clatter of sliding metal, and a sudden stench pervaded the cell from the latrine on one corner. Garrison ignored it. Even if Chief had lost the gun, he could cope with the unarmed Kommandant. Heinrich was his concern now. As the German fell, Garrison took the thick neck between his hands and fulfilled his fantasy, squeezing until the astonished eyes clouded and the blue tongue lolled between the thick lips.

He had not taken as long as he wanted, had not forgotten the others, but his training, as well as his fury, made him deal with the armed men first.

Except that the Kommandant was not unarmed.

As Garrison let the body fall, he heard a crack that was not a gun, and a sudden pain along his back that felt like a bullet burn. He turned to meet the Kommandant's manic stare above Chief's inert body, and a coil of writhing silver that was the forgotten horsewhip.

There was nothing of sanity in the man's eyes as he struck again.

Garrison dropped to the floor, curling in an effort to protect his face and groin. The lash laid a tongue of fire across his back. Even as he rolled away it caught him again, this time along his shoulders.

Aiming for his throat.

There was no defence against this sort of attack in any of the training manuals. He could only attempt to evade the blows, hoping that one twist would bring him close enough to get under the lash to bring its wielder down.

He gathered himself for that attempt as two more cuts scored his spine and ribs. As the whip lifted for a third blow he sprang forward... but the lash never fell.

As so often before it was Chief who had protected his back - if never quite so literally as now. The Indian was standing behind the Kommandant with one knee in the small of his back and the lash of the whip coiled once around his neck and drawn back over the silver handle into a makeshift garrotte. For the first time since their capture, Chief was smiling; the grin of a cat which had caught a mouse. "You want him alive, Warden?"

Garrison staggered to his feet and looked at the man. There was no expression on the bland face. Not fear, certainly not remorse. The Allies would be here eventually, would find more than enough evidence to try him for his crimes. In the meantime, if he was left alive, others would become his victims. If only to save those lives, he had no other choice.

"No," he said.

Chief scythed the Kommandant's legs from under him with exactly the same motion that Heinrich had used on Garrison, but he did not follow his victim down. Instead he stood impassive as the man's whole weight pitched forward onto the thin line held around his throat. It might have broken, had not Chief twisted the handle of the whip as he fell to draw the lash tighter, cutting the German's windpipe as efficiently as cheesewire. Blood poured from the wound, and from the man's mouth. Only then did Chief release his hold, to let him writhe to a slow death on the floor.

They both ignored him. Chief stepped over the body and put a hand on Garrison's arm. "How bad you hurt, Warden?"

"I'll live." He hardly dared look at Chief, conscious of the thin line of crimson tricking down the other man's thighs, and that his cock was covered in the same blood. In that charnel house of a cell, both made him feel sick in a way the bodies did not. "We've got to get out of here."

At least the sounds of gunshots had not brought more guards. It seemed that this part of the camp was the Kommandant's private domain. He had been brought here naked through deserted corridors, and the only men who knew what went on in this cell were dead. They had a little time to prepare, and no choice about their first priority. He moved to start stripping the bodies of the two men he'd killed bare-handed.

It was not the first time that either of them had worn dead men's clothes - all of the team had done it so often that Actor made a joke of it - but it was the first time he had been so conscious of the body scents which clung to the fabric, and the dampness at crotch and armpits which was not wholly the result of the dying spasms of their previous owners. In unspoken agreement they took the outer garments only. Of necessity, Garrison selected the Private's uniform, grateful that, though both men had been shorter than Chief and himself, they had also been heavier. Belted, the clothes fit well enough not to cause comment. Garrison did not plan on wearing them for a moment longer than it took them to con their way out of the camp.

~0~

In the end it proved to be easier than he had expected. A raid on the Kommandant's office yielded more ammunition for the pistol, and a Schmeisser presumably left by one of the guards. While Chief checked and loaded the guns Garrison, with a directness that would have dismayed Casino or Goniff, used a poker to force the locks on the Kommandant's desk. The first drawer he tried contained their own forged papers, and behind them, under a scatter of official stamps and forms, he found a set of blank passes for civilian visitors to the camp. Presumably Heinrich was not the only man who had enjoyed the Kommandant's unique form of hospitality at the expense of the camp inmates.

It was too good an opportunity to miss. Using the Kommandant's signature on a letter in the same drawer as a model, he prepared a pass that matched the details on Chief's papers, blotted it, and affixed the appropriate stamps. Papers and pass went into Chief's pocket, the ashes of the blotting paper into the cold fireplace and the poker back on its hook. It was unlikely that anyone would come in here before they could get down to the gates and away, but Garrison had learned long since to take care of details.

It took longer than he had anticipated for them to negotiate the warren of corridors in the old building but luck was with them. As they reached the gates the afternoon work shift had just begun and, in the confusion of guards checking the passes of inmates and those of the local craftsmen-overseers, a soldier and an extra civilian were able to slip by unchallenged.

~0~

The nearest village was a mile away and, by the time they reached it, Garrison was certain they would need some transport other than their feet. Though he made no complaint, Chief plainly found walking painful - Garrison just hoped to God he'd done the other man no permanent damage... For the thousandth time he wrenched his mind away from the thought, and his eyes away from its subject. Later, when they were well away from here they could deal with what had happened in the cell, and its consequences. In the meantime, transport was the first priority.

It was a measure of Chief's own abstraction that Garrison was the first to spot the opportunity when it offered. He touched Chief's arm, and pointed to a battered truck with German Army markings parked under the trees close to the village's only café, a single man lolling against its radiator.

Chief turned his attention from the backs of the gabled houses which flanked them and nodded. "Looks like it'll be there some time. Give me five minutes, Warden."

It seemed an excessive amount of time even given their weakened condition, but Garrison didn't feel up to arguing with him. Every movement he made rubbed the rough cloth of the heavy uniform tunic across the raw welts on his back. He could cope with the pain, but it distracted him, made him slow. Chief was undoubtedly in the same case.

~0~

Five minutes later, timed by the expensive silver watch that was the only thing of the Kommandant's he had brought out of the cell, he wandered up to the guard at the front of the truck and asked him if he had any cigarettes.

The man had barely made a motion towards the angular shape in his uniform pocket when Chief's arm came round from behind him and choked him into unconsciousness. With the ease of long practice, Garrison caught the body, half-lifted it over to the shade of the trees, and lowered it to the ground, propping the soldier's helmet forward over his eyes, and dropping an empty wine bottle, purloined from one of the café tables, beside him. With luck, when he came round, he'd be too busy explaining his condition to his officers to remember what his assailant had looked like.

He returned to climb into the driver's seat of the truck just as Chief slammed down the hood on the purring, hot-wired engine, picked up a bundle of what looked like someone's laundry and threw it into the back, before clambering into the passenger seat. Garrison let out the clutch and started the tricky turn out of the narrow village street. Once accomplished, he headed west along the road in the general direction of the advancing Allied lines. He wasn't sure how far they were going to get. Their first encounter with a checkpoint would bring discovery: their identity papers might pass muster, but they had no transit documents. In many ways they would have been safer on foot, but what he had done to Chief made that impossible. Indeed, the other man plainly found sitting almost as painful as walking and was hitched sideways in the passenger seat, Schmeisser cradled across his knees.

Garrison's suggestion that he ought to rest in back was treated with contempt. "You're hurt more'n me."

He let it go. Driving, though - hunched forward to save his back - left him too much time to think, and to wonder what Chief was thinking.

He'd never really understood Chief, much as he relied on the man's loyalty. He made an extraordinary weapon to place in any commander's hands, though Garrison felt guilty every time he used him.

Murderer, killing without any apparent flicker of conscience, thief and convict...

Proud, hot tempered, thoughtful, sometimes deeply compassionate...

Red Indian warrior?

Deep in his heart, he knew he had been given the key to understanding Chief. If he wanted to understand.

Behind the efficient killer, Chief was far more vulnerable than he was. He had his family, a secure and loving background, all the advantages of privilege, education, the greater family of the Army...

If he'd been Chief, a product of prejudice and persecution, of orphanages and reform school, the underworld of half a dozen cities, of prisons where, Chief had once told him, he had been more dead than alive, would he have emerged any different? He occasionally wondered if that was why he found Chief so disturbing, because he sensed a likeness between them. The thought used to frighten him, the way Chief's faith in him frightened him.

He'll forgive me anything, even rape.

And maybe that was what he had been afraid of discovering, that he wanted Chief.

He glanced sideways quickly, but the object of his confused thoughts was watching the passing countryside intently, alert for pursuit or German roadblocks - his usual task when 'riding shotgun' in a getaway vehicle - just as if that rape had never happened.

It was not something he could have done, if he'd been the victim.

Which left him back where he'd started, trying to understand what made Chief tick, knowing it was futile when they had so little experience in common. Better to put it aside.

Only he couldn't. So he drove on down the straight and dusty road, his mind circling the same useless track, until he wasn't sure how long it had been since they stole the truck, how long it had been since that cell and what he had done to the man beside him...

As the truck entered a long tunnel of trees where the road cut through the edge of a wooded escarpment, Chief leaned forward, listening. Garrison took his foot off the gas and changed down a gear.

"Something wrong?" he asked, as the vehicle slowed.

The Indian shook his head. "No. But we need to rest a while, an' get cleaned up." He pointed to where a narrow dirt track left the road and wound off among the trees. It was barely wide enough for the truck, but Garrison took the turn and eased the vehicle through the woods until they reached a small clearing well out of sight of the road. When he switched off the engine the only sounds were birdsong and, very close, running water. He rested his forearms on the wheel and leaned forward, at last letting the exhaustion he felt show.

Chief recognised it. There was concern in his voice as he released the catch on the door and dropped to the ground. "Warden," he said, urgently, "we've gotta see to your back."

The last thing that Garrison wanted to do was move from his seat, but he released the lock on his own door and let Chief take his weight as he almost fell from the truck.

The water proved to be a narrow brook, running clear over gravel between grassy banks. The late summer sun, slicing between the trees, cast dancing highlights which made it almost too bright to look at. It was a universe away from the darkness they had left behind them. He felt almost guilty that his first reaction to the sound and the sight of the liquid was a desperate urge to relieve himself.

Chief probably felt the same. At least, he guided Garrison close enough to a tree sloping over the bank to allow him to transfer his weight to the trunk and remain standing when the Indian released him.

"Gotta get the guns 'n' the other stuff from the truck," he said. "Sure you'll be okay, Warden?"

Garrison nodded, and started to unbuckle his belt as Chief turned back into the wood.

By the time the Indian returned he had removed everything except the stolen tunic - which seemed to want to take half his skin with it - and had used the German's helmet to sluice the blood and filth from his body.

He'd been making another attempt to ease himself out of the tunic, and the first he knew of the other man's presence was when he heard an indrawn breath behind him. Then Chief was kneeling at his side. "Warden, are y'crazy? You shoulda waited for me. At least I c'n see what I'm doin'"

There was no arguing with the logic. In truth, he was glad to let Chief get on with it.

The whip had been wielded with enough force to draw blood, and Chief had to soak Garrison's tunic before he could pull it away without taking the scabs with it. Even so, the process was painful, and left him feeling too dizzy to resist the hand on his shoulder that pressed him forward so he lay flat on his stomach - vulnerable, as Chief had been in that dreadful cell. He wondered if the other man saw the irony, if he was tempted to take advantage of his weakness to demonstrate just what, exactly, the humiliation and pain had been like.

Instead, grim-faced but gentle, Chief cleaned the wounds, then soaked a stolen towel and laid it over Garrison's back. "Cold'll ease the swellin'." He placed the pistol close to Garrison's right hand, then rose carefully.

Garrison lifted his head, reached out - and stopped. He couldn't touch Chief, not now. "What about you?" he asked. "I mean, your-"

"Gotta deal with that too," Chief said. "You rest awhile. I won't be far."

~0~

Once the other man had gone, Garrison could relax his control, let the pain twist his face and escape in a gasp that was half moan.

Not all of it was physical.

Chief's kindness was a knife turning in the wound of his own betrayal. He squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face in the crook of his elbows, and swore softly but vehemently until the repetition bored him.

He was half dozing when he heard movement among the trees. Automatically his fingers closed on the butt of the gun. He rolled onto his side to face the intruder - and caught his breath as a wave of pure desire kicked into his guts.

Somewhere upstream Chief must have found a place deep enough to swim. Water still dripped from his hair and pearled on his eyelashes. The sunlight dappling through the leaves cast shadows on his naked body, ran silver highlights where the liquid gilded his shoulders and calves. He had stopped at Garrison's movement, one hand going to the strap of the Schmeisser over his shoulder, the other reaching forward, splay-fingered for balance in a gesture Garrison had seen a hundred times as a preliminary to a thrown knife.

He had never realised before how graceful it was. A hunter's movement, elegant as a leaping cat, dangerous as a prowling wolf.

And absolutely silent. The gun had dropped into his free hand without a sound. Not a leaf had rustled or a twig snapped under his bare feet.

Chief held the position for long enough to be certain that there was no danger, long enough for Garrison to etch into his memory the image of the armed Indian warrior; primitive, feral, beautiful - and deadly.

It seemed impossible that he had possessed him, however briefly, and under duress. More impossible still that the sight of him raised a conflagration in his blood that all his willpower could not deny. He was grateful that his position, half raised on one hip and turned away from Chief, concealed the evidence of his arousal. He would not have been surprised, would almost have welcomed it, if the Indian had used the bullet he had just chambered. It would have solved everything.

Instead Chief released the firing mechanism and set the Schmeisser down beside him as he knelt to meet Garrison's eyes. There was concern in his own. "Warden, tell me what's wrong."

It was the last thing he could do. "Nothing's wrong."

"Uhuh. Somethin's been eatin' at you ever since we left that place."

Garrison shook his head. "Leave it, Chief."

"Warden, I ain't no good with words. I don't know what I gotta say to make it right."

Garrison flinched. "You don't have to say anything. None of this is your fault."

"Back there," Chief jerked his head to indicate the direction from which they had come, "you did what you had to do. What we agreed. Ain't no shame in that."

Oh God, he might as well tell him and get it over with, destroy his trust once and for all. "I didn't have to enjoy it. Not hurting you - God help me, I didn't want to hurt you - but I did - do - want to... to screw you..."

Chief looked startled - almost stunned. Then he rallied. "Why's that so bad?" he demanded. "Shoulda made it easier. Sure made it easier for me, wantin' you."

Garrison stared at him in absolute astonishment.

"I ain't bound by your rules," Chief said, making it an accusation. "_We_ ain't bound by them. You c'n take your guilt an' stuff it, Warden, 'cause the only thing I regretted, 'bout havin' you inside me, was that you was forced. An' after what you just said, I ain't got no regrets at all."

Garrison had dozens: most of all, that he had given so little in return for Chief's loyalty and trust.

And love.

Maybe the way out of this was through Chief's world, after all.

_Nothing's forbidden._

It was what Chief had said in that cell, before the Germans had arrived. He remembered the gentle touch of the Indian's hands on his body, bringing them both to arousal. If the Germans hadn't come in then, what might they have done?

He sat up further, no longer needing to conceal the physical evidence of his feelings, and moved a hand to brush one of the high cheekbones. "Rain on the Mountain," he said softly. "You must teach me to say that in your language."

Chief looked into his eyes with that expression of near-worship that so unnerved him.

Hardly knowing why he did it, he took Chief's face between gentle hands and kissed him on the lips.

He'd meant to make it a light touch, but Chief's mouth opened for him and he was drawn into its warmth, into a passion that said everything that they had not.

Chief's arms locked around his neck, pressing their bodies close, telling him without words how much he wanted him.

Garrison was suddenly certain that they were going to make love, and that this time it would be just that - making love - and that, while they might be able to put what had happened in the prison cell behind them, this would not be so easily laid aside.

When Chief drew him down into the long grass, he went without protest, or regret.

~0~

Garrison lay across Chief's body, his face cradled between the other man's neck and shoulder. "I'm too heavy," he had protested, when Chief had manoeuvred him into this position.

"No you ain't," had been the confident reply and it appeared that Chief was (once again) right.

He had never felt so much at peace. Chief's steady pulse mixed with the music of the stream. He could feel his breath, along with the gentle play of fingers in his hair. Those hands, deft and careful not to touch his back, even at the height of passion, had been eloquent with tenderness. No-one, offered so much unselfish love, could fail to be moved.

He had discovered a great deal about Chief today including, to his relief, that - for all his apparent confidence back in that cell - the Indian was just as damn inexperienced at this as he was, that he was not the only one who was vulnerable, that his hands and mouth could tear away all Chief's defences and leave him open to...

Feelings that neither of them dare put into words.

Chief had never made concessions to society's moral expectations and, because of it, society had tried to destroy him, a destruction in which Chief himself had been the greatest collaborator. The need to stop that process suddenly urgent, Garrison raised himself on his elbows to look down into his face. "Chief, promise me something: after this war is over and you get your parole, don't go back to hunting in White Man's cities."

"Bad medicine t'think about the end of the war, Warden," Chief said and it was the first time that Garrison could ever recall him using the phrase. Until today Chief had always played down his heritage, sometimes even making a joke of it. Now he paused, and swallowed convulsively, his eyes sliding away from Garrison's to look up into the play of sun and leaves above his head. "Don't wanna think about it at all, if it means not bein' with you."

Garrison hadn't considered it from that angle. He'd been imagining Chief rotting in jail again, Chief on Death Row...

He shivered. "If," he said, "we both get through... I'll find some way to keep you with me, if that's what you want. But if I don't make it..."

"You don't go _nowhere_ without me, Warden," Chief said, face intent, eyes once again focused on Garrison's face. "Heaven or Hell, your people's or mine - they don't separate us."

Something in him responded deeply to that commitment, accepting responsibility for Chief's happiness as well as his life, without knowing whether it would be blessing or burden - but they hadn't reached the stage where he could say any of that.

Instead, he dropped his head and licked gently at a neat nipple.

"You ain't gettin' hot again," Chief stated, with certainty and a little amusement. "You got somethin' agin sleep, Warden?"

"The Germans-" Garrison began.

"'ve got too much to fret on without chasin' us."

Which was true enough. The truck had contained nothing of value - they hadn't even killed the guard - there were many people moving west, and when the Germans found the truck - if they even bothered to search - they were unlikely to look much further.

So he settled back down into the warmth and safety of Chief's arms. The last thing he heard as he drifted into sleep was Chief whispering softly and rhythmically in a language that had no relationship at all to any he knew. Whether war chant or lullaby or spell to keep the enemy away - or maybe Chief was just practising irregular verbs - it was fascinating...

And soporific. He drifted into sleep without ever realising it.

~0~

Dawn brought clamorous birdsong and, almost drowned by the chorus, a distant clatter of gunfire.

Garrison woke to find that the pain in his back had muted to no more than an aching stiffness, that at some time during the night Chief had covered him with a sheet which had undoubtedly come from the same washing line from which he had purloined the towel back in the village, and that the other man was missing.

He took a deep, calming breath to quell the irrational panic that gripped him. Chief was far too experienced to let himself be recaptured. He was probably investigating the sounds of battle from the valley below.

Which were coming closer. Whatever it was, they would have to move off soon. Which meant getting dressed again.

Chief had used his five minutes in the village before they had stolen the truck productively and there were shirts and underwear in the bundle that had yielded sheet and towel. Garrison washed quickly in the stream, grateful for the sting of the cold water which drove the last of the drowsiness away, and was pulling on the uniform pants, still damp from the washing he had given them the day before, when he became aware that he was being watched.

He turned slowly and met Chief's steady gaze. He recognised the expression; it was probably the same one he had worn when Chief had walked naked into the clearing yesterday. Pure lust.

He was suddenly very aware of how tight the damp fabric pulled across his hips and buttocks, constricting and defining the soft bulge of his sex against his thigh. It had never occurred to him that his aesthetic pleasure in Chief's beautiful body and strong features might be reciprocated. Until now.

One of them was going to have to show some restraint.

He took a deep breath, finished buckling his belt, and nodded to the valley below. "Did you take a look at what's happening down there?"

For the first time Garrison could remember, Chief looked briefly startled before shaking off his distraction. "It's an Allied convoy," he said.

The front line must have moved faster than they had expected, or the work camp was closer to the border than he had realised. It would have explained why the place was comparatively empty, and why they had not been chased. And it meant that they had no further to run. An easy walk down the valley would bring them to the Allied lines, and a straightforward trip home. They'd probably beat the rest of the team back.

And then what? The war was nearly over. A few more missions and, if they survived, the team would be shipped back to the States to serve the last six months of their sentences, and he would move on to another posting somewhere.

That was what he should do. But the last twenty-four hours had changed everything. They were no longer conscript and commanding officer, but blood brothers, warriors, lovers... He could not abandon all that now.

His doubts must have shown on his face, or maybe Chief really could read his mind, for he said: "It won't make no difference, Warden."

"Maybe not to you, Chief, but I'm no Indian warrior."

"Nor am I," Chief admitted. "Just partly one, I guess. An' most of that's your teachin'."

Garrison stared at him in surprise. "But I'm a white man, Chief - and I'm part of the army that destroyed your people."

Chief's smile was very gentle. "You're yourself, Warden, not some Horse Soldier from last century. You understand the Way better'n I do. An' you're my war band leader, blood brother... ain't words in English for what you are..."

Garrison wanted to kiss him, somehow stopped himself and said, instead, "Nor for you, Rain on the Mountain."

Chief touched his hand lightly. "Knew you'd understand, Craig."

This time Garrison did kiss him, felt the intensity of his response, and knew that he'd been right: what had happened between them could not be laid aside. He didn't know what the consequences would be, did know that he wasn't really ready to face them - but then he'd had more than a few qualms about his ability to take command of a bunch of convicts in the first place.

Take it one day at a time, the way he had then. "Okay, Chief," he said. "Let's go home."

"Whatever you say, Warden."

They made their way on down towards the US lines.

 

The End


End file.
